By Bob Chrisman
When I was eight, I received a new robin’s egg blue, girl’s bike for my birthday in May. I had selected that particular bike at the shop in the South End where we lived. I wanted a girl’s bicycle so I wouldn’t hurt myself every time I slid off the seat when I stopped. That always happened on boy’s bicycles and kept me from enjoying riding.
My father looked at the price tag and shook his head. “I don’t think we can afford this much. Let me talk with your mother.”
At eight years old, I had already heard that one phrase, “I don’t think we can afford this much” so often that I knew I would never own the bike I wanted. That’s the way things worked in my family: you didn’t get what you couldn’t afford and we couldn’t afford much at all.
On the morning of my birthday I ate my breakfast and opened my birthday cards. When I asked if I had any presents, my mother rolled the bicycle I’d picked out into the kitchen. “Your daddy and I decided that you were old enough to have this, even though it cost more than we would usually spend for a present. You’ve got to take good care of it. Okay?”
I leapt out of my chair and grabbed the bike before it vanished. Only when I held the handlebars in my own hands was it real. I had the bike I wanted.
Later that morning I opened the screen door and made sure to pull the bike out before the door slammed. I took it down all the stairs to the sidewalk and rolled it down the hill until I reached Ozark Street which was flat and graveled. Only then did I climb on my new bike and pedal along the street with the wind in my face. I felt so happy and so proud.
My friends congregated up the street and I rode my new bike up there to visit with them and show them my birthday present.
When I arrived, one of the boys said, “Hey, Bobby, why you got a girl’s bike? You a sissy?”
“No, I wanted a girl’s bike because it’s easier to get on and off. That’s why.”
“No, you’re a sissy. He’s a sissy, isn’t he?”
Everyone laughed.
Then the kid said, “I want to ride your sissy bike.”
“No, you can’t. It’s brand new. I just got it and I want to ride it for awhile before anyone else does.” I held on tight to the handlebars.
“Hey, sissy, that’s not very nice. But, I don’t want to ride a blue girl’s bike anyway.”
I turned around to ride home. The kids screamed names at me as I rode away. I’d reached the end of the block when a clunk sounded on my rear fender. A cheer went up from the kids. I crossed the intersection and started pushing the bicycle up the hill. When I was out of sight of my friends, I looked at the rear fender. Someone had thrown a big rock and dented and scraped a place on my new bike. I lost it. I couldn’t stop shaking and crying, but I pushed the bike up the hill, up the stairs and parked it on the porch.
My mother came running out of the house. “What’s wrong? Did you fall?”
I couldn’t speak so I pointed at the rear fender. My mother looked at the damage. “So that’s what you’re crying about? For heaven’s sake, it’s only a bicycle.”
No, it was so much more than that.
NOTE: WRITING TOPIC — MY FIRST BICYCLE is the latest Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman joined QuoinMonkey in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.
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Touching. Heartbreaking and raw. All of it. Your parents who actually attended to how important it was to you to have that bike and, despite its cost, bought it for you. Exactly what you asked for. That those little boys responded predictably and you were too young to know to expect it or to protect against it. That the other boys used you to inflate their own smallness. That that rock found its mark, hitting not only on the fender but deep in your heart.
ouch.
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Thanks for reading and commenting, Jude. Years later in therapy I lost control and cried about that dent and everything it symbolized about my life to that point.
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Kids are horrible. Then they grow up to be horrible adults.
I may be feeling a bit cynical today.
Love to you Bob – to you the little boy with a dent and to you the grown-up writer who writes so powerfully. xoxo
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I think you were so brave! I would have dropped my bike and run like lightening.
I love the line “it’s only a bike.” That speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
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Oh, Bob — your excitement and your heartbreak are so palpable in this writing practice. I was prepared for your disappointment, but you got what you wanted! Then, what you wanted moved so quickly into what you didn’t want … that which you never asked for. Life is like that sometimes: heartbreaking.
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Neola, thanks for your words (cynical or not). These “horrible” kids grew up to be good adults for the most part from what little contact I’ve had with them since I left my hometown.
T, “it’s only a bike” hurt so much because my mother wanted every physical thing kept as new looking as possible. I thought she would understand how much the dent had hurt me, but, as I remember, she brushed it off with that comment. Maybe she did it to make me feel better. I don’t know. Thanks for stopping by to read my writing practice.
breathepeace, thanks for your comment. Life can be heartbreaking.
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Where are those kids? I want to beat the living crap out of them. This writing practice brings out the Ripley in me.
I heard once that the heart is the only broken instrument that still works, like your bike, I guess.
We soldier on, don’t we? We soldier on — dented and broken — toward the onslaught that will never, never stop. Sweet jesus, we soldier on.
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Flannista, those kids are grown adults now…well, those that haven’t died along the way. I know for sure that their hearts were broken too when they were young so I don’t hold what they did against them now, but it hurt when it happened and I carried the pain for a long, long time.
Weren’t we taught to soldier on? Really, what other is there if we want to continue to live in this world?
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Bob, I was so sad when I first read your practice, sad that this was your first experience with your bike. It is heartbreaking that you were treated like that. I have mostly good associations with my younger days of riding a bicycle. But I had one other person tell me that their experience with their first bike was not a pleasant one either. That’s why it’s so good to read different practices on the same Writing Topic.
Something that struck me about this practice was the fact that neither of your parents said anything about you wanting a girl’s bike rather than a boy’s bike. It seems like it would have been a time when parents would have questioned that and maybe anticipated that you might get teased. Gender specifications were so much more set back then.
Then again, I think if I had told my parents I wanted a boy’s bike, they probably would have gotten it for me. Did you ever tell your parents later in life about this experience? I’m just curious if they ever knew the impact it had on you. Thanks for writing with me. I really appreciate it.
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QM, I’m sure my parents tried to convince me to buy a boy’s bicycle and maybe even explained to me that kids would make fun of me, but it didn’t matter. Every time I had ridden a boy’s bike I ended up sliding off the seat and injuring myself on the crossbar. I couldn’t enjoy riding a bike if I hurt myself every time. I remember explaining that to my dad.
I didn’t get (and still don’t) how things have genders. Boy’s bikes. Girl’s bikes. Boy’s shoes. Girl’s clothes. It’s ridiculous as though I could change my sex by surrounding myself with “girl’s” things. What I’ve learned over time is that the people around me feel more comfortable if I express myself using the gender-specific things available in our society.
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Bob,
Something that struck me in this writing practice was a quality I’ve seen in you many times that you had at eight. Sort of a sensible, practical way to make decisions. I can absolutely see you weighing the pros and cons of a girl’s bike and doing what made sense. Why not? Too bad the social consequences were severe; it was a good decision.
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Thanks, Teri. I thought it was a wise decision, but many times I was out of step with the times.
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[…] NOTE: WRITING TOPIC — MY FIRST BICYCLE is a Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Marylin Schultz adds her Writing Practice to those of QuoinMonkey and Bob Chrisman. […]
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